#thylalock

(i actually answer what you want to know like, 3/4 of the way down if you wanna skip to there LMAOOOO ily ♡)

okay, okay, i’ll get to the rest of your wonderful question in a second, but i just have to share something that has broken me: in the autumn of 1915, fearing that the BEF would reach a point where it couldn’t be sustained by volunteers alone, kitchener’s director general of recruiting, the earl of derby, launched the derby scheme. what this scheme meant was that every eligible man between 18 and 41 who was not in an essential occupation had to declare themselves.

in january 1916, as a result of this nation-wide survey, and with the BEF now certain that volunteers alone would not be able to fill the ranks at the rate that kitchener’s new army soldiers were being butchered across the channel, every single man and childless widower between 18 and 41 was offered three choices:

enlist at once,

attest at once under derby’s system, 

or, on 2 March 1916, be automatically deemed to have enlisted.

in may 1916, the bill was then extended to married men.

this means that it is entirely possible scho didn’t voluntarily enlist - that he had wanted to stay with his wife and his daughters, that he had been forced into service through conscription, and that he had arrived at the front just weeks or days before thiepval.

anyway!!!! honestly, it is very difficult for me to work that out, and i’ve been trying to for months. as far as i can tell, at first it was based on where they had signed up from, and then, as the volunteer army was all but wiped out at the somme and enlistment numbers slowed to a trickle, conscripted soldiers were assigned, for the most part, at random. i believe it had something to do with the allocation of regimental numbers, which were generally issued to recruits chronologically and in sequence. 

what i do know for a fact is pals battalions! when derby and kitchener realised that they could exploit local pride and close-knit community bonds, they introduced the concept of pals battalions, which meant that if you and all your mates signed up, you’d be guaranteed to be placed in the same battalion for the adventure of a life time! and they did sign up, in their hundreds of thousands. 

what this meant when they actually got the front was that a whole town could lose its entire population of military-aged boys, many of them under-aged children who had lied about their ages and been signed up by complacent recruiters who turned a blind eye, in one single day. as the highest number of pals battalions were raised in the north of england, this meant that the north was hit especially hard and that entire villages were essentially wiped out and/or spiralled into mourning by just one afternoon’s fighting. but pals battalions were raised across the whole of britain, including the south. 

the 8th (service) battalion of the east surrey regiment, however, was not a pals battalion, nor were any of the devonshire regiments. 

and- oh no wait i just found the information i’ve been looking for for months, and i was half right!!!

so basically, prior to the introduction of conscription in 1916 - and i’ll just talk about the regular army here and not the reserves or territorial force - recruits had a choice of which regiment they would be assigned to. kitchener, hungry for anyone and everyone to enlist and trying to make it as appealing as possible, did away with the stipulation that all recruits serve for a period of 7 years followed by another 5 in the reserves, and introduced a new form of “short service”, in which men would serve for “three years, or the duration of the war, whichever the longer.” to reiterate, during this time of enthusiasm and eager enlistment, recruits had a choice of which regiment they were assigned to. 

following the disappointing results of the derby scheme, the british government introduced the military service act on the 27th of january, 1916. conscripted troops were no longer given a choice as to which service, regiment, or unit they joined, though men with a preference for the navy were given priority. all british males were now deemed to have enlisted on the 2nd of march 1916 – that is, they were conscripted – if they were aged between 19 and 41 and resided in great britain (excluding ireland) and were unmarried or a widower on 2 November 1915. this act was extended to married men, and the lower age dropped to 18, on 25 may 1916. 

so, to answer your question, if scho enlisted before january 1916, he would have been given a choice as to which regiment he was assigned to - and, given that his home in cookham was just across the border, it makes sense that he would have chosen the east surreys. however, if he was conscripted, he would not have been given a choice and would most likely have been assigned to them as a matter of convenience. 

it’s almost certain, then, that blake was conscripted, even if he had been wanting to enlist as soon as he turned 18 and wasn’t unhappy about that fact. he, therefore, would most likely have been assigned to the east surreys at random, perhaps because they had just suffered heavy casualties and needed to be bulked up. and this definitely makes sense re: their accents and different class backgrounds!!

same probably goes with smith’s regiment - that hodge-podge of cockney and scottish and liverpudlian is almost certainly a result of conscription. as desperation for cannon fodder increased, the BEF started taking almost anyone, half-trained and half-disciplined and handed a rifle, and that sentiment is very much reflected in the seemingly random assortment of ages and backgrounds you started to find in any one regiment.

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

im so bad at watching things 😔😔

that’s a huge mood. 

i actually don’t yet! i’ve been so busy giffing and making content i haven’t had time to get into it yet. (also writing my own small fic as well!)